Implementing the Council of Europe Landscape Convention: The Deûle Park, Reawakening of a Landscape

Abstract

This paper is a study of a representative example of the application of the Council of Europe Landscape Convention (CEP), with a project that is emblematic of the implementation of the CEP as the first winner of the Council of Europe's landscape award in 2009. It shows how the principles of that international treaty ratified by France and enshrined in national law was able to inspire public plans and policies for the reconstruction of landscapes that met the objectives of the four sustainable development pillars of culture, environment, society, and economy. This example demonstrates that public policies can bring positive results in those fields and generate not only quality public space but also significant improvement in the quality of life by ensuring access to the fundamental good of landscape while preserving access to another fundamental good of drinking water. The paper starts with a short history of the Landscape Convention, then brie fly explores its main premises and values, before providing the concrete example of the Deûle Park or Parc de la Deûle located within the Lille metropolitan area, in the North of France.